Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art—Notes for Tomorrow

Image: Ibrahima Thiam, Maam Ndeuk Daour Mbaye, 2020, photography. Collection of the artist.

Exhibition Dates: August 30, 2022 – January 28, 2023
Opening Reception: September 2, 2022, 5 - 8 pm

The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art presents Notes for Tomorrow, an exhibition conceived in 2020 by the New York-based curatorial organization Independent Curators International (ICI). The exhibition, which features artworks selected by thirty curators based in twenty-five countries around the world, reflects on a new global reality ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this cultural moment of transition, each work is a source of inspiration from the recent past and a guiding perspective for the future.

Many of the artworks in the exhibition address spirituality as a grounding mechanism, sharing ways to make sense of the world when so much is in doubt. Some engage with specific mythology, while others reveal political structures that may or may not still be standing. The formation of monuments is questioned, and their removal is all but certain. 

The exhibition addresses art’s potential in the construction of collective memory in a global era. Viewers are invited to learn the importance of sustaining and sharing different forms of knowledge, prompting us to re-imagine our conceptions of the future.

Notes for Tomorrow was curated from selections by alumni of ICI’s Curatorial Intensive, a professional development program founded in 2010 on principles of international exchange, inclusivity, and knowledge-sharing. With the ever-present backdrop of a global pandemic, ICI turned to these curators to question and reassess values and relevance in contemporary culture, and asked each of them to share an artwork they believe is vital to be seen today.

Notes for Tomorrow includes work by Madiha Aijaz, Ernesto Bautista, Maeve Brennan, Vajiko Chachkhiani, Luke Luokun Cheng, Nothando Chiwanga, Shezad Dawood, Demian DinéYazhi’, Cao Guimarães, Ilana Harris-Babou, Rei Hayama, Amrita Hepi, INVASORIX, Tamás Kaszás, Ali Kazma, A Liberated Library for Education, Inspiration, and Action (Chicago ACT Collective, Interrupting Criminalization, Read/Write Library, Undocumented Projects), David Lozano, Mona Marzouk, Joiri Minaya, Peter Morin, Omehen, Daniela Ortiz, Kristina Kay Robinson, Luiz Roque, Mark Salvatus, Yan Shi, Ibrahima Thiam, u/n multitude, and Wayne Kaumualii Westlake.

The contributing curators are: Charles Campbell, Freya Chou, Giulia Colletti, Veronica Cordeiro, Allison Glenn, Tessa Maria Guazon, PJ Gubatina Policarpio, Ivan Isaev, Ross Jordan, Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick and Josh Tengan, Esteban King Álvarez, João Laia, Luis Carlos Manjarrés Martínez, Fadzai Veronica Muchemwa, Lydia Y. Nichols, Marie Hélène Pereira, Balimunsi Philip, Josseline Pinto, Florencia Portocarrero, Shahana Rajani, Rachel Reese, Marina Reyes Franco, Mari Spirito, Alexandra Stock, Eszter Szakács, Abhijan Toto, Fatoş Üstek, Su Wei, and Sharmila Wood.

This program is supported in part by Nevada Humanities. Learn more at unlv.edu/event/notes-tomorrow.